Don’t You Just Love Our Collage Scan Art!

I was so inspired by Ms. McCloskey’s art classes that I decided to try my hand at some art myself. Sadly, I have zero artistic ability. Unsadly, the folks at Scrapblog have tons of it, just waiting for me to borrow. It works like the scrapbooking you do by hand with all the cute stickers and frames and letters and “stuff” you can add to your pictures to make them cooler, but it is way easier and faster. Well, in theory, at least. I had a few glitches in posting mine to WordPress, but the second time I tried, it posted quickly and beautifully! You just select a background, import the pictures you want to add from Flickr or your computer, drag and drop the aforementioned extra “stuff” into your scrapbook page (or delete any of the stuff you don’t like from the page), save your final copy, and post to your blog, MySpace, FaceBook, or zillions of other websites. OK, maybe not zillions, but several, which is almost as good as a zillion. If you can’t count.

Books Rock!

Check out the cool graphic I made on ImageChef! You simply must try it immediately! There are lots of cool graphics and animations; all you have to do is type in your own expression and ImageChef does the rest. You can create a card, send an email, or post to your blog, MySpace, FaceBook, or practically anywhere. How cool is that? Be patient, because sometimes the post takes a while; emails seem to go faster. I also couldn’t get animations to post to WordPress, but they worked fine as an email.

We Love Books

This is just another example of a cool ImageChef graphic I made for your entertainment. Yeah, I got carried away. But it is almost Valentine’s Day!

District Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl Results

Mrs. Fleet and Mrs. Hamilton volunteered Saturday at the northern district Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl competition. It was a first-time experience for both of us and quite an eye-opener, to say the least. Mrs. Fleet read questions and decided if the answers were right or wrong and Mrs. Hamilton kept score. It was an awesome responsibility! The Reading Bowl is open to teams of students in grades four through twelve from across the state. Elementary and middle school students are tested on the original twenty titles from the Georgia Children’s Book Award nominees and high school students are tested on the twenty Georgia Peach Book Award nominees. The winning teams from the four regional Reading Bowls will compete for the state championship on March 1 at the Georgia Children’s Literature Conference in Athens. Congratulations to the following northern district winners:

·         Elementary

1.       Still

2.       Harmony

3.       A. L. Burruss

·         Middle

1.       Smitha

2.       Lovinggood

3.       Trion

·         High

1.       Gilmer

2.       Osborne

3.       Pickens

And the Nominees Are…

The Georgia Library Media Association has released its nominees for the 2008-2009 Georgia Peach Book Awards for Teen Readers. The goals of the Peach Book Award program are:

To encourage Georgia young adults in grades 9-12 to recognize and read quality literature appropriate to their needs, interests, and reading levels.

To honor outstanding works in young adult literature.

To recognize authors in the field of young adult literature.

To develop cooperative school and public library services to teens.

Next year’s list is as exciting as this year’s was! We look forward to another year of great reading fun. Here is the list of nominees:
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Absolutely Positively Not by David LaRochelle
American Born Chinese by Gene Yang
Boot Camp by Todd Strasser
The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart
Copper Sun by Sharon Draper
Epic by Conor Kostick
Gingerbread by Rachel Cohn
Impulse by Ellen Hopkins
Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt
Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeiffer
Notes From the Midnight Driver by Jordan Sonnenblick
Plain J.A.N.E.S. by Cecil Castellucci
Right Behind You by Gail Giles
Rucker Park Setup by Paul Volponi
Side Effects by Amy Goldman Koss
Sold by Patricia McCormick
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld                         

Hey, Bibliophiles! Don’t Miss the Fun Food February Fiction Forum!

The Blatant Bibliophiles will meet during each lunch period on Thursday, February 14 to celebrate Valentine’s Day with snacks for all our bibliophiles. Please come by the library workroom after you finish lunch and join in a Fun Food February Fiction Forum–in other words eat, giggle, and talk about your favorite books!

Celebrate Black History Month with the Readergirlz

In honor of Black History Month, the readergirlz are featuring award-winning novel Bronx Masquerade by author Nikki Grimes. This Coretta Scott King Author Award-winning book is also perfect for Valentine’s Day, because it’s all about heart. Author Grimes moves beyond the masquerade to break down the barriers that separate us and makes her readers realize we are more alike than different. Here’s a quote: “I dare you to peep beyond these eyes, discover the poet in tough guy disguise.” How cool is that? Join the readergirlz for a live chat on Thursday, February 21 at 9 PM for a chance to win a free book! The tenth poster will win a copy of Bronx Masquerade and the 20th poster will win a signed copy of My Sisters’ Voices: Teenage Girls of Color Speak Out by Iris Jacob. And here’s a quote from the readergirlz by Mrs. Fleet’s gal pal Maya Angelou (remember when I heard her speak in Rome last fall!): “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”